On the topic of 9/11
Now. I don't mean to offend anyone with this entry, and if you are sensitive on the subject of 9/11, then perhaps it's better that you skip reading this.
The 9/11 anniversary makes me angry. Not - as one might think - because of any belated ire towards the terrorists who crashed those planes into the WTC. They were, no doubt, despicable people so grossly misled that they would sacrifice innocent lives for something so utterly abstract and twisted as what they did. 3000 people should not have had to die. This much is obvious; any life lost is a tragedy too horrible for words.
However. What angers me is the way that 9/11 is treated my media and by people - and by people I mean mostly Americans. (I'm not generalising this; it's not all Americans I'm talking about. Rather, I'm speaking of those few I have heard and/or seen talk about this on the 'net - which, admittedly, is not the best base for judgement). The WTC-incident is treated as if it is some sort of holy thing; some untouchable tragedy with an air of "You-wouldn't-understand-because-this-has-never-happened-to-you" around it. I can accept that those directly involved in the incident may think or feel this way - they have every right; it is a traumatising event - but what I can't stomach is the way even those people who weren't there, had no relatives involved and who don't even know anyone who did get all upset and waspish when you mention that no, this is not the first terrorist-action in the history of the world, and no, this is not even the first terrible thing to happen on September 11th.
Let's have a list, shall we?
1943 - the liquidation of the Jewish Ghettos in Minsk and Lida is started by the Nazis. (As in; they began moving the Jews into concentration-camps.)
1944 - RAF bomb-raid starts a firestorm in Darmstadt, which ends up killing over 11 000 people.
1973 - The military coup in Chile - incidentally supported by the CIA - led by Augusto Pinochet topples the democratically elected Salvador Allende. (And no, it hardly matters that Allende's time as President was marked by civil unrest when Pinochet's reign was a dictatorship where anyone who dared to disagree was rooted out and corrected, or simply "dealt" with.)
.... and that's just a few.
What really gets me is the way most die-hard patriotic Americans seems to take any terrorist-act committed on American soil as somehow more important and more tragic than similar incidents beyond American borders. The WTC still somehow remain an untouchable wound, while the bombings in Madrid are shrugged off as unimportant. 9/11 was - it seems - the first, only and ever when it comes to acts of terrorism. Baader-Meinhof; the IRA-bombings in Ireland; the Beslan school-siege - all of these seem to be shrugged off in favour of nursing America's collective wound.
And this thing about sorting out Arabic people in airports and refusing them travel? Well, who's to say all terrorists are Arabic? What about that Oklahoma-bomber guy? Very American. The Unabomber? Very American.
Yes, WTC may be the terrorist-act with the largest casualty on American soil so far. Yes, I know that not all Americans behave this way. Yes, I know that there are a lot of Americans who do believe that the war on Iraq is wrong (Iraqi civilians killed so far; approaching 50 000. 50 000).
I'm not complaining about you. I'm complaining about the idiots out there who believe - in some utterly stupid way - that America is all that matters.
Yeah. I'm done now.
The 9/11 anniversary makes me angry. Not - as one might think - because of any belated ire towards the terrorists who crashed those planes into the WTC. They were, no doubt, despicable people so grossly misled that they would sacrifice innocent lives for something so utterly abstract and twisted as what they did. 3000 people should not have had to die. This much is obvious; any life lost is a tragedy too horrible for words.
However. What angers me is the way that 9/11 is treated my media and by people - and by people I mean mostly Americans. (I'm not generalising this; it's not all Americans I'm talking about. Rather, I'm speaking of those few I have heard and/or seen talk about this on the 'net - which, admittedly, is not the best base for judgement). The WTC-incident is treated as if it is some sort of holy thing; some untouchable tragedy with an air of "You-wouldn't-understand-because-this-has-never-happened-to-you" around it. I can accept that those directly involved in the incident may think or feel this way - they have every right; it is a traumatising event - but what I can't stomach is the way even those people who weren't there, had no relatives involved and who don't even know anyone who did get all upset and waspish when you mention that no, this is not the first terrorist-action in the history of the world, and no, this is not even the first terrible thing to happen on September 11th.
Let's have a list, shall we?
1943 - the liquidation of the Jewish Ghettos in Minsk and Lida is started by the Nazis. (As in; they began moving the Jews into concentration-camps.)
1944 - RAF bomb-raid starts a firestorm in Darmstadt, which ends up killing over 11 000 people.
1973 - The military coup in Chile - incidentally supported by the CIA - led by Augusto Pinochet topples the democratically elected Salvador Allende. (And no, it hardly matters that Allende's time as President was marked by civil unrest when Pinochet's reign was a dictatorship where anyone who dared to disagree was rooted out and corrected, or simply "dealt" with.)
.... and that's just a few.
What really gets me is the way most die-hard patriotic Americans seems to take any terrorist-act committed on American soil as somehow more important and more tragic than similar incidents beyond American borders. The WTC still somehow remain an untouchable wound, while the bombings in Madrid are shrugged off as unimportant. 9/11 was - it seems - the first, only and ever when it comes to acts of terrorism. Baader-Meinhof; the IRA-bombings in Ireland; the Beslan school-siege - all of these seem to be shrugged off in favour of nursing America's collective wound.
And this thing about sorting out Arabic people in airports and refusing them travel? Well, who's to say all terrorists are Arabic? What about that Oklahoma-bomber guy? Very American. The Unabomber? Very American.
Yes, WTC may be the terrorist-act with the largest casualty on American soil so far. Yes, I know that not all Americans behave this way. Yes, I know that there are a lot of Americans who do believe that the war on Iraq is wrong (Iraqi civilians killed so far; approaching 50 000. 50 000).
I'm not complaining about you. I'm complaining about the idiots out there who believe - in some utterly stupid way - that America is all that matters.
Yeah. I'm done now.